The Sojourners

I dream houses.
I dream small rooms
behind small doors
in which small wardrobes
lead nowhere but trappings
of our mangled time –
of yours and mine.

I dream chimney fires,
tongues between walls
and curtains hung like tar.
We were never long
in the vapors, strangers yes,
but a lope of gray shoulder
and a turning was you, I am sure,
everturning and blue.

I find you in the floorboards,
scuttled in dust and debt,
heaped for a match,
for a flicker,
but nothing is scorched in this.
Rather what crushes here,
the burdens of rooves on cinder,
the cracking of small rooms,
small scores
never carved from a plan,
compress what should be at rest.

I cry “Wake”, each morning,
I cry “wake” to find you,
tragic in the sheets,
bound before the fan ,
mumbling something to someone,
flexing your hand. Yes, I see you,
tangled, but dreaming I think,
twitched of some else tomorrow,
stitched to your own land pink.

Image: Pan Da chuan on Unsplash